Great point about the Equality Index being vertical -- that's something I've been considering.
Regarding it being represented as a number, I originally wanted to include that, however, the way the Equality Index is calculated is pretty rudimentary. Creating a number representing the "amount of equality" people have is going to be pretty arbitrary, especially without enough public opinion data. Eventually, once it becomes more sophisticated/accurate, and I include more data points and surveys, maybe I will reconsider. For now, I purposely left it as an unlabeled bar so that it's a little clearer that it's a "rough visualization."
I'm looking into that right now. Not sure why both of those entries are referring to the age of consent rather than simply homosexual activity being legal/illegal (the both received quite a few accurate votes too). Age of consent has a separate section further down the page.
The site is crowdsourced, so if you click "Accurate?: No" on anything incorrect (on a country's page), you can supply details so that our moderators can look into it. :) Thanks!
"Conversion therapy" is a controversial therapy used to "convert" gay people "back to straight." The process is almost always heavily influenced by religion, and can be very harmful, psychologically. Some gay people are forced into this against their will, by their parents. There have been cases where people have committed suicide or had suicidal thoughts.
The organizations who run the therapy are super sketchy as well.
Banning snake oil is never a part of a free society.
Whether you want to admit it or not, some people commit themselves to these centers and come out straight / believing they're straight/cisgendered/etc. Their motivations are generally because they come from a culture/family that is not accepting of who they really are. They themselves probably hate who they truly are. So they pay thousands of dollars for the chance of tricking themselves into believing that things are different.
Does it commonly fail? Of course.
But does there exist someone in the world who is living a happier life because they attended this therapy? I believe it's possible. And for that reason, I think banning it is wrong.
I imagine that choosing between being accepted by your community/family and being unhindered in expressing your sexuality is a very difficult and personal decision. I don't think any lawmaker has the right to make it for you.
> Banning snake oil is never a part of a free society.
The problem is parents forcing it on their kids. Set the minimum age to 22 or so (where most kids will be finished with college, since most kids are dependent on their parents for that now too), and it would be a lot more palatable.
I've run into that issue a few times but I thought I fixed it. Before, reloading seemed to have fixed it. I'll look into it though. Thanks for pointing it out! :)
Equaldex is one of my favorite new things. A lot of the other sites like Out and Advocate are too spammy. I've got Facebook notifications set up for it, and all I get is actual news.
Wow, thank you so much! Glad to hear! Are you mostly referring to the news share through Equaldex's social media accounts (mostly syndicated from http://equaldex.com/news)? Or the site itself?
Regarding it being represented as a number, I originally wanted to include that, however, the way the Equality Index is calculated is pretty rudimentary. Creating a number representing the "amount of equality" people have is going to be pretty arbitrary, especially without enough public opinion data. Eventually, once it becomes more sophisticated/accurate, and I include more data points and surveys, maybe I will reconsider. For now, I purposely left it as an unlabeled bar so that it's a little clearer that it's a "rough visualization."